A Denver Police Department analysis estimates that medical- marijuana dispensaries in the city were robbed or burglarized at a lower rate last year than either banks or liquor stores.

The analysis — contained in a memo authored by Division Chief Tracie Keesee for Denver City Council members — finds that the projected robbery and burglary rate for storefront dispensaries in 2009 was on par with that of pharmacies.

The analysis is the first time Denver police have sought to compare crime at dispensaries with that at other businesses, and it represents a best-guess at a crime rate for the city’s rapidly evolving dispensary industry. Denver police spokesman John White said he didn’t want to speculate on the bigger meaning of the numbers until the department can do a more thorough analysis.

But the memo comes as welcome news to medical-marijuana advocates, who have sought to convince state and local officials that dispensaries are not crime magnets.

“It sounds anecdotally about right,” said Matt Brown, with the pro-dispensary group Coloradans for Medical Marijuana Regulation. “. . . Occasionally they happen. (Dispensaries) are by no means immune to crime. But they’re far more manageable than some of the public outrage would lead you to believe.”

Police departments in other parts of the state — and in other states as well — have reported spikes in medical-marijuana-related crime coinciding with increases in the number of dispensaries in their communities.

Denver police statisticians arrived at the estimated crime rate for dispensaries by looking at the total number of burglaries or robberies reported at storefront dispensaries in 2009 — eight — and projecting what that number would have been had all the dispensaries operating in Denver at the end of the year been open for the full year.

The figures do not include medical-marijuana-related crimes that occurred outside storefront dispensaries — such as robberies of medical-marijuana delivery services or home-based caregivers. Previously, Denver police officials have said there were at least 25 medical-marijuana-related robberies or burglaries in the city in the last six months of 2009.

The projected 16.8 percent burglary and robbery rate for dispensaries is equal to that of pharmacies. It’s below the 19.7 percent rate of liquor stores and the 33.7 percent rate for banks, the analysis found.

State Sen. Chris Romer, a Denver Democrat who has been working to create regulations for Colorado’s medical-marijuana system, said the numbers show that crime at dispensaries should not be ignored.

But he said it also shows that the crime rate is not so high as to necessitate the banning of dispensaries, which one proposal floating around the state Capitol would effectively do.

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